The scientific conference “Identity and
Heritage. Museums of High Schools” held in Krakow, 22–24
November 2017, was a good occasion to learn more about
the institutions that look after the broadly defined academic
heritage. The legal status of high school museums have been
described in the article as well as the consequences thereof.
The results of research on such museums existing in Poland
have been presented. The study was conducted in 134 public
institutions of higher education; it focused on identifying
museum and academic collections, and their rank within an
organisational structure of the institution.
The analysis of collected data allowed to ascertain the
number of high school museums operating in Poland, which
is 68; they are administrated by 44 various high schools
(universities as well as schools of specialisation: technical,
medical, agricultural, economic, pedagogical, artistic). It has
been pointed out that in the years 2009–2018 as many as 17
new collections were initiated (some of them are still being
organised or changed their status after merging of institutions
or collections). As far as the museums’ place within an
organisational structure of the school is concerned, it has
been noted that the faculty museums are the most common
ones, followed by those of the general school-wide status.
The most important changes that academic museums are
presently facing have also been mentioned and described
herein, such as transformations of organisational and legal
aspects. Last but not least, the virtualisation of collections
has been identified as a current issue
